The phone rang at a little past seven the next morning. I had washed and brushed my teeth a few minutes ago and was about to throw on some clothes and let the dog out. Instead, I grabbed the landline and was surprised to hear John Grishner, our vineyard manager, on the line.
“Hey, Norrie, hope I didn’t wake you but there’s a kid here in the barn who says he needs to talk to you right away.”
“A skinny blond kid? Hair in need of a comb?”
“That’s him. Refused to give me his name and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.”
“Oh, brother. It’s Eli Speltmore. Henry’s kid. He’s probably afraid you’ll call his parents. Tell him to walk up to the winery and wait out front. I’ll meet him there. Fred and Emma should already be at the bistro getting set up for the day.”
“Eli Speltmore. Is that the graffiti artist from not too long ago?”
“Oh, yeah. He already paid penance for that but the kid can’t seem to stay out of trouble. He was the one who pointed Theo and me in the direction of that dead body by Lake View Winery. Geez, he better not be offering up another corpse.”
John laughed. “I’ll send him your way.”
Like a flash, I got dressed, opened the doggie door to the fenced-in area, changed Charlie’s water and filled his food dish with the usual kibble. Then I did the twenty-yard dash to the winery. Only it wasn’t a dash and it was more than twenty yards.
This better be important, Eli, because I haven’t had my morning coffee.
Eli’s bike was resting on the side of the front entrance door and he sat on a large slab step by the entryway. As soon as he saw me, he charged over.
His words were fast and garbled. But most of all they were chilling.
“Someone’s going to kill my father. I couldn’t call you because my mom took my cell phone away on account of what happened so then I snuck out the window and biked over here.”
“Okay. Okay. Slow down and let’s replay this. What makes you think someone is going to murder your father?”
“Like I said, I don’t have my cell phone and I’m grounded.”
“Grounded.”
“Yeah. That’s why I had to go out the window.”
“I get that. Skip to the murder part.”
“Stuart is grounded too, but his mother sleeps late. His father doesn’t live with them.”
I wasn’t sure I understood any of this but I motioned for Eli to keep talking.
“The old-fart phone is the only phone I can use. So Stuart waits for me to call him first thing in the morning. We get up way before the old folks.”
Finally. Something is beginning to make sense.
“Did you pick up your parents’ phone and overhear a conversation when you were about to call Stuart?”
“Uh-huh. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“What did you hear?”
“I picked up the phone in the hallway real quiet-like so I wouldn’t get caught. Then my father said, ‘That’s blackmail,’ so the other guy says, ‘For now it is. You wouldn’t want to wind up like Davis Brewer, would you? Awful thing. Wouldn’t you say?’”
“You heard all that?”
“Yeah. Is Davis Brewer the dead guy? The one Stuart and I found?”
“Your parents didn’t speak with you about the man’s death?”
“Cripes, no. My father wanted to, but every time he started to mention it, my mother would sob and start saying things like, ‘He’s only a boy, Henry,’ and ‘He doesn’t need to be traumatized any further. The less he knows, the better.’ Yeesh.”
Eli Speltmore may have been eleven going on twelve, but he had the grit of a middle-aged adult.
“What else did you overhear?” I asked.
“So my father goes, ‘And what if I call the sheriff’s office?’ and the guy says, ‘That’ll be your last call. Make sure you take care of that little matter so I don’t have to take care of you.’”
“Did you recognize the man’s voice? Maybe someone you heard around the winery or even at your house?”
Eli shook his head. “Nope. And don’t tell me to speak with a deputy. First off, they’re not going to believe me, and second, I’ll wind up having to spend the rest of my summer at my aunt Doris’s in Pittsford with my two snotty cousins, Bella and Aria.”
“I want to help you, Eli, really I do, but I’m not sure how— Hold on a minute. Does your landline, your house phone, have caller ID? Can you check? Sometimes it goes into an answering system and stays there until someone manually deletes it. But that would only help us out if your father wasn’t the one who placed the call. Did you hear the phone ring?”
“It might have. I was in the bathroom first. Before I picked up the phone.”
“All right. Check it out when you get home and call me. Try my house first and then the winery. Do you still have my phone numbers from last time?”
Eli nodded. “Can you catch the guy before he kills my father?”
“Not without involving the sheriff’s office, but first things first. We need to find out who was on the phone with your dad. And blackmailers usually don’t kill. All they want is money.”
I looked around, and other than the few vineyard workers who were tying vines, the place was as empty and quiet as could be. I hoped the same could be said for the Speltmores’ winery.
“Your bike might fit in my trunk. If not, I’ve got some cord to tie it down. I can’t believe I’m doing this but hurry up and I’ll drive you home. Meet me at my house over there and I’ll start my car. I’ll let you off by your family’s winery building. Don’t ride your bike on the road. I mean it. If you do it again, I will personally call your aunt Doris and tell her that you told me how much you wanted to see your cousins.”
Eli’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
Thank goodness the Speltmores’ winery was as quiet as ours at this early hour in the morning. I got the bike out of the trunk and dropped Eli off at the foot of his driveway. He swore he’d call me as soon as he could.
“If I’m not available,” I said, “ask for Lizzie and leave a message. Our winery opens at ten.”
“What if the guy shows up at our house?”
“I doubt he’ll do anything to your father at your own house, or even in your family’s winery. There are too many people around. But if things get scary, call nine-one-one.”
I watched as Eli got on his bike and headed up the hill to his house. Unlike Two Witches and Gable Hill, the one Eli had to navigate wasn’t quite as steep. Still, it was steep enough. Convinced he’d be safe, I did a three-point turn at the base of their drive and headed home.
Once inside my house, I couldn’t get the K-Cup into the Keurig fast enough. Charlie had gobbled up all of his kibble and begged for more. Sucker that I am, I gave him another quarter of a cup before nuking a ready-made oatmeal for my own breakfast. As I spooned the gloppy mixture into my mouth, I jotted down the latest development in my murder notebook. If what Eli told me was true, and I had no reason to doubt it, then maybe Henry Speltmore was the link that connected Brewer to Boyd. That is, if Boyd turned out to be the guy on the phone and not the result of my overworked imagination. Granted, he was near the scene and the time line sure fit, but without more information, there was no way to connect the dots.
In lieu of torturing myself with wild speculation and fantasy-driven theories, I figured I’d torture my script analyst as I plodded along with Kisses on a Sandy Beach. At least Wellfleet on Cape Cod was a locale I adored, even though I hadn’t been there since I was a kid.
Three hours later, having written a love scene with dialogue that wouldn’t make anyone gag, I flipped the cover of my laptop shut and left the house to go straight to the tasting room. Writing love scenes was an art in itself. One slight move to the left and it’s all sappy, or another move to the right and it’s too rigid. Too bad the firsthand experience I had was years ago and I washed it out of my mind along with that sophomoric relationship. I stood and took a breath. Eli’s early morning wake-up left me anxious and ravenous. A combination I was not fond of.
Lizzie was on break when I got to the winery and Cammy had taken over the computer/cash register. She gave me a huge circular wave when I walked in.
“Hey, stranger! What’ve you been up to? Did you just get up?”
My hands immediately flew to my hair and I realized I hadn’t looked in a mirror since I met with Eli. “I’ve been up for hours thanks to the Speltmore kid, who biked over here at sunup. Seems he overheard a phone conversation and is convinced someone’s about to murder his father.”
Cammy’s hand flew to her cheek. “Wow. That’s one hell of a wake-up call. What did you do? And more importantly, why did he come here?”
“I couldn’t very well do anything except tell him to get the caller ID from the phone and call me back. And as for your second question, he came here because he knew the sheriff’s deputies wouldn’t believe him. Smart kid. Oh, and he wasn’t about to tell his parents because he’s in deep you-know-what from the other incident.”
“Do you think maybe you should call Deputy Hickman?”
I shook my head. “With secondhand hearsay? And from a kid, no less?”
“What about Henry Speltmore? Think there’s any validity to what Eli heard?”
“He heard words like blackmail and a veiled threat about Brewer’s body. That tells me Henry may know more about the murder than anyone. Right now I’m banking on Eli having some luck with caller ID. And there’s more. When Lizzie gets back, come over to the bistro for a few minutes and I’ll tell you. I’m starving and liable to chew my arm off.”
“Go! Eat! See you in a bit.”
It was lunchtime and the bistro was bustling. I had Fred make me a ham and Swiss on rye and helped myself to a bottle of iced tea. Emma was so busy with salads, I don’t even think she saw me in front of the counter. As I walked toward a two-person table, Cammy approached.
“Lizzie’s back! Talk about good timing. What else were you going to tell me?”
“Do you want something to eat?”
“I had a big breakfast. I’ll wait until later. So, what else is going on?”
I bit into the crusty bread, savored it for a few seconds and then spoke. “Last night I talked Godfrey into poking around where Brewer’s body got dumped.”
“Momma mia!”
“Relax. We didn’t go near the crime scene tape, only the surrounding area to see if we could find any evidence that the forensic team missed. I figured they would stick to the direct route but Godfrey and I fanned out.”
“And?”
“And we lucked out. Here, see for yourself.” I reached in my pocket and showed her the scarab bracelet.
“It’s fourteen carat gold, Norrie. Not some cheap costume piece.”
“I know. I looked it over last night and that wasn’t the only thing we found. Or the only thing that happened to us.” I went on to tell her about the bungie cord and the couple who were in the woods looking for something.
“I think they were after the bracelet. Maybe they killed Brewer and it slipped off of the woman when they dragged his body. They had to come back and find it. I mean, why else would two people be in the woods at dusk?”
Cammy propped her elbow on the table. “You tell me. You and Godfrey were in there.”
“We were looking for evidence. They were looking for that bracelet before the sheriff’s deputies found it.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not.”
“Oh, I think so. Besides, the guy said something that made me think he had a gun. Godfrey and I literally flew out of there. Thank goodness those bushes are thick and they didn’t see us. We drove off but skirted back and watched them. Someone picked them up and dropped them off at a wide pull-off down the road from the woods. Then they got in their own car, a white SUV. And get this—I have the license. And a photo of them.”
Before Cammy could say a word, I took out my cell phone and showed her the picture.
“Um, it’s kind of grainy. They could be anyone.”
“I know. But I’ve got a license plate. I’ll make sure everyone at the winery has a copy and we can all keep an eye out if that car pulls into our parking lot. I mean, it’s not as if I can turn the license plate number over to Deputy Hickman.”
“True.”
“I’ll make sure to hand it out at the WOW meeting and I’ll call Don and Theo later.”
“Mind if I take another look at the bracelet?” Cammy asked.
I handed it to her and she rolled it over in the palm of her hand. “Looks like these are cabochons.”
“Huh?”
“You know. Gems that are polished but not faceted. They don’t look like resin or anything man-made.”
“I’ll show it to our tasting room staff. Maybe someone will remember seeing a woman wearing it. People are always holding out their wineglasses for the next taste, and if that bracelet dangled, maybe someone will remember whose arm it was attached to.”
“You’ve got nothing to lose.”
Cammy held the bracelet in the air, and at that moment Glenda appeared.
“Sorry to interrupt but the T-shirt company is on the phone for Cammy. It’s about the fall order.”
Cammy stood, handed me the bracelet and said something about catching up later. While she rushed off, Glenda zeroed in on the exquisite piece of jewelry and winked. “Is that a gift from Bradley?”
“Um, no. It may be a piece of evidence that can link us to Brewer’s killer. Godfrey and I found it near the scene of the crime last night. Too bad we have no way of knowing who it belongs to.”
Glenda closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “I may be able to help. Well, not me, but Zenora.”
I widened my eyes and didn’t say a word. If I thought Glenda was a tad on the eccentric and offbeat side, she was the epitome of normalcy compared to Zenora. From sage-stick house cleansings to ritualistic chants and séances, Zenora had all bases covered. I cringed in fear of what Glenda had in mind.
“Zenora is learning a new art—communicating with the dead through the objects they loved and treasured.”
Heaven help us.
“Uh, the person who owns this bracelet is still breathing.” Or at least I think she is.
“That will make the process go a whole lot easier for Zenora. She won’t have to navigate through the barrier that separates the living from the dead.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Her sense of touch will enable her to feel the essence of the owner and thus contact her spiritually.”
“And then what? Let Verizon or T-Mobile take over?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Zenora will draw the person to our winery. I’ll call her when she gets off from work. You can thank me later.”
With that, Glenda rushed back to the tasting room. I stared at the remainder of my ham and Swiss sandwich for a moment before taking another bite. I wasn’t sure if Zenora’s newly honed skills would help matters or hinder them, but I figured in the long run it probably wouldn’t matter.